It also has other potential applications, because even cyclists who are more skilled than triathletes, such as toddlers, will likely benefit from it as well.

As a cyclist and owner of a human child I was intrigued by this product, which is the most ambitious childhood bicycle learning tool since that remote-controlled brake thing:

I live in a pretty hilly neighborhood and I wouldn't have minded having a MiniBrake the time my human child lost control of his bike on a steep street, hit the curb perpendicularly, and went over the bars. Then again, after a good cry he asked if he could do it again, so maybe physics is the best teacher.

However, the Jyrobike is different. Whereas the MiniBrake is arguably similar to keeping your kid on a leash (which plenty of parents do), the Jyrobike is more of an invisible disembodied hand magically keeping the bicycle upright until your little Fred-in-training learns how to do it himself. (Or your little Frederica-in-training, obviously.) Sure, the Jyrobike spares your precious offspring the essential experience of falling (as well as the subsequent humiliation of trying to extract himself or herself from the frame of the bicycle, also essential), but at least the device is not random and punitive in the Old Testament sense like the MiniBrake is. Instead, the Jyrobike seems to involve your little Fredlet in the process of learning to control the bike. Basically, it's more New Testament, kind of like riding alongside an omniscient and benevolent Psychedelic Disco Jesus.

Anyway, let's take a closer look at the video. Here's someone covered in sensors:

Ironically all these electronics have nothing to do with the development of the Jyrobike itself. This is just one of the lab assistants arriving at work. Between Strava, GPS, keyless bike locks, video cameras to mind the homicidal drivers for you, and all the rest of it, this is what all bike commuters will look like by 2020.

I don't know what volume it actually controls, but if they've also invented a remote that controls the volume of a child then they're going to raise at least $30 million in the next six minutes.

Still, as intriguing as it is, an adult Fred such as myself would never, ever employ such a device, for it would be a source of great shame if one of my seventeen (17) children were to learn how to pilot a bicycle any other way than at mine hand and under mine own tutelage in an analog fashion. That's why I'd also never employ a bicycle tutor (via Klaus at Cycling Inquisition again):

Ah, that first bike ride, a time-honored rite of passage for kids and parents alike. The wheezing gasps as Dad or Mom runs alongside, holding up the frame. The secretive release, the momentary ­independence — the topple, the skinned knees, the tears.There’s got to be a better way.Enter the bike tutor, one of an underground army of instructors working to get kids — and adults who never learned as children — riding.Their going rate is $90 to $125 an hour for private lessons, although some set up higher fees for open-ended sessions or offer lower rates for group instruction.

This seems about right. Anecdotally I'd say children are learning to ride later and later, as the average age of the kids I see on Magnas with training wheels these days is about 17. Moreover, if a kid in the playground so much as eyeballs something with wheels a parent will materialize screaming, "DON'T TOUCH IT WITHOUT A HELMENT!!!" You can't blame parents entirely for any of this, since increasing car traffic over the years has made it nearly impossible to play in the streets, but the upshot is that more and more of them seem to be saying, "Fuck it, I'll wait until he's older and lease him a Hyundai." My guess is that the next generation of suburban children won't learn to ride bikes growing up at all, and will only do so after college when they move to Brooklyn, at which point they will take exorbitantly expensive artisanal cycling lessons so they can be in compliance with the city's strict bicycle licensing requirements and not interfere with driverless car traffic.

In the meantime, I understand Rapha is also getting into the children's bicycle training tool market, and they've already introduced a pair of glasses that will shock your tot if he or she places them under the helment straps:

(Unwitting child smiling in the moment before electrocution.)

Epic.

Lastly, here is a video that has been making the rounds recently in which people can't return their Citi Bikes:

As a child of the 70's I seem to recall cars slowing down when we played and OMG rode bikes in the street, yes unhelmented. Today it seems like drivers don't give a flying rat's ass if they buzz kid doing 40 on a 25 mph road. It pisses me off. Kid's are not riding bikes and we will all pay for it.

For years I've thought the idea of the self-balancing bike using centrifugal force would be epic, for bicycles and motorcycles too.Guess I should have pulled on a suit and started selling the idea instead of sliding on Lycra and going for a bike ride. Heh.

I only charge $90 an hour to tutor people on how to take the bus when it rains.

I think I saw an episode of self-tutoring yesterday morning. A guy going really fast in the opposite direction was yelling "faster! faster!" at himself. Or maybe it was "bastard! bastard!" Anyway, despite his I'm-just-riding-to-work clothes, he had the clenched unhappy look of a Fred. Probably doesn't pay himself enough.

Meanwhile, in the Twin Cities, people take their bike training seriously. Really, really seriously.http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/story/25665112/charges-neighbor-61-pulls-gun-on-father-teaching-girl-to-ride-bike#.U428RPXfT4Q.twitter

June 4th, 2025: The rectal motivator was a little cold this morning as I slid onto my bike. I touched the map and put my RealWorld helmet environment on, brought up my favorite fifty sites, and started pedaling, out into the vast shuffling stream of self-driving ladybugs heading down I-66. The BSNYC blog was so hilarious that I forgot to pedal fast enough for the Master, who shocked me via the probe several times to keep me above the recently mandated 8 mph minimum. Good thing the bike can't fall over. But things can still go wrong in this mechano-paradise. I was careless in touching the map, and instead of delivering me to my job at the soylent factory, I ended up at the city protein recycling facility and had to look sharp to avoid becoming soylent myself! Ha ha! I put the whole video on Twatter and we all had a jolly laugh about it later.

"...my human child lost control of his bike on a steep street, hit the curb perpendicularly, and went over the bars. Then again, after a good cry he asked if he could do it again,..."

Perfect, he learns to overcome fear and wants to keep upping the ante. Eventually he grows up to enlist in special forces and is sent to Bush's Scranus Bag of hell on earth (a.k.a. as Iraq) to die for the most corrupt government on earth, not the US, that's the best government uber wealthy money can buy, the government of Hamid Karzai.

Babble - Hope the surgery went well and you get to enjoy Wreck Beach in no time. I hope the surgeon was a young stud who looks like an on TV surgeon, who, when he saw you naked in the OR (socialized medicine can't afford gowns or sheets) thought to himself "why didn't I become a Gynecologist?"

I looked like Somerville guy last night!! Although at 3 mph. Got a flat on Kent Ave with the "fender bike". 531 and drainpipes red Peugeot. Anyway, heard the psssfsssfsssfsss of the front getting flat. Slowed down in the bike lane. No car traffic, no bike traffic, no armored cars pulling in the depot. Started to pull up the 7 inch total height (basically flat) driveway and BAM. Metal edge slipped me rear wheel out from under me. Little road rash on the calf and bruised ribbage. What the fluff!?! It wasn't even a crash, it was just a frikkin fall really. My calf and ribs would be perfect if I had a helment on I am certain.

On the bright side, I fixed my flat and a few riders stopped to see if all was OK.

I was rolling my bike along the station platform this morning. The station attendant interrogated me over whether I actually folded my bike when I was on the train (if he had looked, he would have seen me unfolding it). Fuck it, I'm leasing a Hyundai.

A jyrobike in an adult size might be good for people requiring various adaptations, e.g. missing or prosthetic limbs, paralysis, etc. Anything to make it possible for people who want to ride, to be able to ride

That said: Sweet Psychedelic Disco Jesus, I don't even have kids and I will buy 10 child volume controls right now if you tell me where to send the money!

It really is too bad that they aren't making a tri-specific version of the jyrobike wheel. Since a lot of tri geeks use dick rear wheels anyway, it'd be perfect. But they'd have to make a crabon fibre version. And it would have to be light. Plenty of tri geeks with excess body weight, but excess bike weight is totally unacceptable.

In a series of 2 children, what got the 9 yo to ride a big girl bike was fear that the 7 yo would do it first...she'd outgrown the trek lion cub, and they didn't make training wheels for a bike her size a half hour riding around the school yard on her new bike & she was fine..little sister graduated next, I saw that she rode without the training wheels ever touching & took them off...held her in a track stand...and pushed off

Bah, six years ago I invented a self-righting bike for kids and sold it through CommieTech LLC. It was an innovative design with an added third wheel to the rear. Impossible for a kid to fall off, thus saving money on healmentes. Plus, you could smack the kid and he wouldn't fall over, which is what he deserved for talking to Daddy, while Daddy is drinkin'.

It is fashionable to malign training wheels now but going back and forth between balance bike and regular bike with training wheels worked best for us. Helped to learn the mechanics of pedaling and braking without worrying about falling. (Balance bike took care of the balance part.)

Defacto balance bike: take off the pedals...I heard about that too late for my kids...result that older daughter didn't learn until she was 9...though at 18 I goaded her into forming a tri relay team...sensing that the 10 mile bike ride was the easy leg, she took it & didn't train at all.she cursed well describing the assholes who cut off teenage girls in what's supposed to be a time trial

Maybe the nut job filming the Citibike rack problem should put an out of order sign on the bad rack and call the company? Nah, that's not nearly as fun as filming scores of people dealing with a malfunctioning device and posting to "social" media. Or antisocial, as the case may be...

push bikes where child's feet are at ground level seem to teach the brain to be the gyroscope without this tech dependent step. Why is it better - for the child's delicate ego or the parent's laziness?

Bicyclist Gets Robbed at Gunpoint and the Thieves Didn't Realize His GoPro Recording the Crime http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/failblog/~3/kd9MWBLoSXo/61477121Wonder if it's real? I'm skeptical of everything I see on the interwebz.

I just figured out Kickstarter. One used to have to convince a rich person that probably knows business, marketing, etc. to loan money for one's venture. Now, one just had to convince dozens of stupid people.

Unironic thanks, sir, for all your postules. I am currently working my way through the oeuvre, in order, and have thus far managed to make it all the way from 2007 to mid 2010. In addition, I have purchased and read your first novella, but found it to be, while generally entertaining and indubitably the finest of toilet books, lacking in bite compared to your online emissions.

Also, I would like you to know that if you type 'bsnyc' into an Apple device, it shall be autocorrected to 'nancy' (note the lower-case initial letter). What does this mean?

About Me

While I love cycling and embrace it in all its forms, I'm also extremely critical. So I present to you my venting for your amusement and betterment. No offense meant to the critiqued. Always keep riding!